Pain is something everyone experiences. This episode of The Anthill podcast explores how and why it works in our brains, what kinds of drugs are being developed to reduce pain, and whether or not robots of the future should be built so that they experience pain.

Detail from a statue of the Virgin Mary cradling the body of Jesus (15th-century Slovenia). For many centuries, the pain that could accompany dying was seen as punishment for sin and ultimately redemptive.
September 26, 2017

If opioids prevent significant suffering, then the solution to the prescription opioid problem cannot simply be to stop using them.

There are real consequences to ignoring children’s pain in hospital. These include increased sensitivity to pain, abnormal social behaviours when older and higher levels of anxiety before a future procedure.
(Shutterstock)September 24, 2017

There are several ways into the book Shaping the Fractured Self: poetry of chronic illness and pain, edited by Heather Taylor Johnson. And there are many uses it might serve in the multiple worlds of poetry…

Drug related deaths are on the rise, but federal funds to programs that mitigate drug abuse are being cut in 2018.
Me/flickrJune 12, 2017